N E Z P E RCE c PEOPLES of NORTH AMERICA c Introduction F or thousands of years the Nez Perce Indians ranged over the Columbia PLATEAU in what is now the northwest ern United States Their homeland stretched from the Bitterroot Mountains in the east to the Blue Mountains in the west In between was nearly every landscape imaginable Grasses flow ers and edible plants bowed in the breeze on the high flat prairies while sagebrush and rabbitbrush poked up from the floors of deep desert-like canyons Gentle rolling hills carpeted by grasses gave way to high mountain slopes tangled with pine fir and hemlock Deer elk and pronghorn roamed the land and SPAWNING salmon fought their way upstream through clear cold rivers churning with mountain snowmelt The Nez Perce traveled through this country on foot and later horseback moving with the seasons to reap the natural bounty The Nez Perce called themselves Nimiipuu meaning The People or The Real People French traders named them Nez Perce for pierced nose Perhaps they either saw some Nez Perce wearing nose piercings or misinterpreted the tribe’s name in the Indian sign language In addition to a new name Europeans brought a new culture to the Nez Perce one that some accepted and others rejected Those who rejected it eventually found themselves at odds with the U S Army After the fighting subsided divisions between the groups remained and today the Nez Perce live on two separate reservations But at both the people continue to celebrate aspects of their traditional culture Between the Blue Mountains and Snake River are the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon 6
N E Z P E RCE P E O P L E S of N O R T H A M E R I C A People of the Land A NTHROPOLOGISTS believe that the ancestors of the Nez Perce settled in the Columbia Plateau around 10,000 years ago At first the population was likely small but it grew until the Nez Perce occupied a region covering parts of present-day Oregon Washington and Idaho The ancestral Nez Perce likely speared large game gathered mussels and wild plants and fished The earliest Nez Perce ancestors may have lived in caves and holes in the canyon walls or set up camp in the open But around 4,500 years ago they began to build pit houses These were shelters with floors dug a few feet into the ground The part of the shelter that was above ground was probably made of poles covered with brush or bark Later the Nez Perce built large communal lodges in place of pit houses These structures were made of two walls that angled in toward each other forming a triangle The walls were covered with mats woven from cattail stalks reeds or grasses Sometimes the floor was dug into the ground A lodge could be 100 feet 30 5 m or longer and house up to 30 families Everyone slept along the walls of the lodge and each family built its own fire in the center of the structure The smoke went up through openings at the top of the lodge The Nez Perce lived in their lodges during the winter when they settled Idaho lakes and forests made good fishing and hunting grounds for the ancestors of the Nez Perce 9
